Case Studies \ A Customizable Personal Website
Our client wanted a solution that would provide users with a faster and more productive Internet browsing experience. Users were to be provided with options to aggregate their various everyday Internet tasks such as checking e-mails, reading the latest headlines, etc into a single web based interface. Based on these requirements Icreon developed the velocitized.net website as a customizable personal website that allows users to configure and collate information from multiple sources, across the web, and view it on a single website.
Business Requirements
With the objective of enhancing a user's Internet browsing experience our client required a solution that would enable them to provide users with a single consolidated platform to access and perform their everyday Internet tasks. The solution was required to be customizable for individual users as per their preferences. Provisions enabling a user to aggregate information and tools from a list of available resources and organize them into separate tabs were required. The application was also required to be accessible via mobile phones.
A solution to aggregate and organize information
Benefits:
- Allows users to customize their aggregate internet resources to a single website
- Provides for mobile integration
- Web based interfaces for the administrator to control the functioning of the website
Users:
The solution can be accessed by various types of users:
- Administrator: Has complete control over the functioning of the website. Also has complete access to the back-end administration console.
- Registered Users: Users who have registered with the website to purchase products online.
Solution:
The solution developed by Icreon on the .net framework, provides users with a customizable website that they can personalize for quick access to their everyday Internet activities.
Users are required to register with the website to create their personalized account. The website provides a tabbed interface that can be customized to include e-mail accounts (Hotmail, Yahoo and Google), top headlines from popular websites (such as Washington Post, Google Entertainment, ESP, Wall Street Journal etc) and various tools (such as a To-do list, Weather indicator, Wikipedia search etc). Each of these elements is displayed as a widget. Users can add/remove or customize each widget to their preference.
One of the major features of the application is the ability to flag elements to the 'Mobile' tab. Elements added to the mobile tab will be available to the user when he/she logs into the website from a mobile phone.
The various elements that can be added/customized by the user include the following:
E-mail Accounts
Personal website Users are provided with options to configure their personal e-mail accounts on Hotmail, Yahoo and Google.
The website interacts with the respective e-mail APIs to retrieve and display the user's inbox on the website. Selecting an inbox item will take the user to the respective e-mail. Users can configure multiple e-mail accounts.
News Feeds
Users can configure to receive RSS feeds from a list of pre-defined websites.
A maximum of 10 headlines (configurable by the user) can be displayed for every feed.
Tools
Various tools have been integrated with the website. These include:
- To-Do List: The to-do list tool enables users to create and manage their task list. They have options to prioritize the tasks and flag them as complete. They can also print the entire to-do list.
- Wikipedia Search: Allows users to directly search Wikipedia through the website. Users can the search phrase in the tool to perform a search on Wikipedia.
- Personal WebsiteWeather Channel: Google Gadgets has been integrated with the solution to power the Weather Channel tool. Users can customize it to view the weather forecast of their local city.
Users are provided with options to request the administrator for feeds/tools not available on the website.
A web based administration panel has been provided enabling the administrator to manage and monitor the website. The administrator can view a list of registered users, configure the RSS feeds, view the comments submitted by the user etc.
Users can register with the website as a student/employee or professor/manager. Professors and managers can setup tests for their employees/students who in turn can login to take the test.
The Professor Module can be used to setup and manage assessment groups. Each group consists of a specific number of students/employees who can take the test. Professors can track the status (test completed or not) of the groups and can also view individual test results as well as a consolidated group results.
Students or employees can access the Student Module to take the test. Students are associated with a group and need to provide their group id, as reference, to take the test. The test consists of 63 questions (the questions and answers are retrieved from an XML file) that have been divided into various dimensions (sections). Each dimension represents a specific area of a user's personality. On completion of the test, the results are computed and displayed. The interpretation (i.e. the score in each dimension and a descriptive interpretation of the score) of the result is made available in the form of a word document. Each student can only take the test once, however if a test has been left incomplete it will be available to the student till such time that he/she completes it.
Technologies used in developing this application are:
